Starbucks closes for racial-bias training

Two men who had entered a Starbucks in Philadelphia were arrested after trying to use the restroom in the establishment. An employee had refused to allow them to enter, or use the restroom, because they had not bought anything from Starbucks. Soon after sitting down, the employee told them to leave, before calling the police. Once the police officials had arrived they soon arrested the two men. At that time, another person, Andrew Yaffe, confronted the police officers and asked, “But what did they do? What did they do? Someone tell me what they did?”

From the narration of Rashon Nelson; he and his friend were at Starbucks to meet a business associate. He wanted to use the restroom but was refused, and was told it was for paying customers only. So, he and his friend sat back down and waited until the business associate came. They hadn’t ordered anything because they had bottled water, and this was when employees had dialed 911, and police officials showed up to the scene shortly after.

Many people after hearing/seeing the story, started to try and bring awareness towards the racism in society, especially towards Starbucks. Many people were happy to hear that Starbucks was taking action, but they hated how they’re only taking half a day to “learn” about racial bias. People believe that taking half a day would not address the problem of racism and how they caused the arrest of two men because of how they were African-American.

This event was a moment of racial bias, where the two African-American men were disrespected and not allowed to do normal things by a white man. Racial bias in the world is huge, not only does it affect the rest of the world, and countries, etc., it is also affecting people, families, children in the U.S. Children have been bullied for having different colored skin, for being “black,” or “Asian,” or foreign.

One way or another, people will always be racist, because people will always be judging others, in everyday life. No one will forget about it and will always use race, skin color, or ancestry as an excuse to hate/discriminate against people.

Starbucks had announced this incident as racial/implicit bias, but really it was just racism. Starbucks had then decided to close all Starbucks in the U.S. for a racial bias training. Believing that teaching their employee’s/staff about racial bias would stop them from enacting these events in the future.

“It’s not just a black people thing. This is a people thing. And that’s exactly what we want to see out of this, and that’s true change. … Put action into place” – Rashon Nelson

Rashon was one of the two men arrested that day, and appeared on ABC’s, Good Morning America news to talk about the incident.

After the incident, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson had released a video explaing, what Starbucks would do to ensure that this incident would not happen again.

To view the video of Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson -https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/nation/2018/04/16/starbucks-ceo-meets-officials-after-philly-arrests/33906029/